| Esper: US troops, armored vehicles going to Syria oil fields Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:23 PM PDT  The United States will send armored vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to keep oil fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday. It was the latest sign that extracting the military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump is making it out to be.
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| 'White terror': Hong Kong's China critics beaten in targeted attacks Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:17 PM PDT  The men jumped Stanley Ho without warning, smashing both his hands with metal rods -- one of multiple recent attacks against prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy figures that activists have dubbed a "white terror". Since late August, eight well-known pro-democracy figures have been beaten by unknown assailants as fear swirls that some "triad" crime networks have flocked to Beijing's cause after five months of protests. "The cause of the attack may be related to two things -- the upcoming district council election and the ongoing movement," Ho told AFP, referring to the protests.
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| China calls for 'severe punishment' for those involved in UK truck deaths Posted: 24 Oct 2019 07:58 PM PDT  China called on Britain on Friday to seek "severe punishment" for those involved in the deaths of 39 people, believed to be Chinese nationals, found in a truck container near London, as a major state-backed paper said Britain should bear some responsibility for the case. For years, illegal immigrants have stowed away in trucks while attempting to reach Britain, often from the European mainland. In 2000, 58 Chinese were found dead in a tomato truck at the port of Dover.
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| Harvard’s Student Newspaper Chooses Ethical Journalism over PC Mob’s Demands Posted: 24 Oct 2019 05:38 PM PDT  Harvard University's student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, was accused of "cultural insensitivity" and "blatantly endangering undocumented students" last month -- all because it had adhered to journalistic ethics.It's true: According to an article in the Washington Post, all that the newspaper had done to deserve this was ask U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement representatives for comment on a story about an "Abolish ICE" protest. In other words? The paper's reporters were attacked because they demonstrated basic journalism skills. It is, after all, not only not controversial to ask both sides for their views in a straight-news piece; it would actually be controversial not to.Despite this, the Post reports that "hundreds" of students signed a petition calling on the newspaper to stop talking to ICE completely. Their cause was quite obviously absurd, and it depresses me that hundreds of our nation's (supposedly) best and brightest could actually be ignorant enough to sign something like that.The good news? Rather than back down from the pressure, the newspaper stood its ground. Earlier this week, Crimson editors Angela N. Fu and Kristine E. Guillaume published a defense of the paper's work."The Crimson exists because of a belief that an uninformed campus would be a poorer one — that our readers have the right to be informed about the place where they live, work, and study," the letter states. "In pursuit of that goal, we seek to follow a commonly accepted set of journalistic standards, similar to those followed by professional news organizations big and small."It continued:> Foremost among those standards is the belief that every party named in a story has a right to comment or contest criticism leveled against them. That's why our reporters always make every effort to contact the individuals and institutions we write about — administrators, students, alumni, campus organizations, and yes, government agencies — before any story goes to press. We believe that this is the best way to ensure the integrity, fairness, and accuracy of our reporting.Good for them.Yes, I understand how illogical it was that this was ever even a controversy to begin with. The truth is, though, we're now living in a culture where people don't always use logic. Particularly, the social-justice mob has a habit of just throwing around buzzwords instead – such as "insensitive" or "racist" or "sexist" -- and fully expects that doing so will be enough to silence their opponents. Worse? It often works. Often, when the mob accuses a person of doing something offensive, the knee-jerk response is an apology. The pressure, after all, can be very intense -- no one wants to be smeared, or even canceled, and sometimes an apology can seem like the only way out.I'm glad to see that the Harvard Crimson didn't do this. These student editors stood up not only for journalism specifically, but also for logic in general. They rejected the idea that the offended person is always right, simply because he or she is offended. Not only is this great news on its own, but I also hope it will inspire others to stand up for what's right in the future -- rather than making the social-justice mob more powerful by caving to it out of fear.
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| The 6 Best Leaf Vacuums to Rid Your Yard of Autumn Debris Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:08 AM PDT |
| North Korea Nightmare: Why South Korea's K2 Black Panther Is One Mighty Tank Posted: 24 Oct 2019 04:00 PM PDT  A big deal.
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| Brexit Bulletin: The Waiting Game Posted: 23 Oct 2019 11:34 PM PDT  Brexit is (officially) 7 days away.(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.Today in Brexit: Boris Johnson is being forced to wait for the EU to set the length of an extension he never wanted.What's happening? Boris Johnson's Brexit plans remain stuck in limbo. Officials in Brussels are leaving him hanging on as they debate whether to grant a third extension to the U.K.-EU divorce process.EU ambassadors agreed in Brussels last night that they should accept the British prime minister's request for more time, which Johnson says is really Parliament's delay, not his. But there's no consensus yet on how long he will get. While many other countries want to give the U.K. the three months it has asked for, the French, led by President Emmanuel Macron, are pushing for a tight deadline of Nov. 15.While Macron's stance may ultimately help the British premier to use the specter of a no-deal split into pressuring MPs into backing his calls for a fast-track approval process, the reality among officials in Brussels is that no one wants to be blamed for triggering a chaotic rupture with the U.K., Bloomberg's Ian Wishart and Alex Morales report. "There's no chance that we don't give them a chance," Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said yesterday. "We'll write 'postpone', and 'postpone' and 'postpone', and we'll keep on like that for another 90 to 100 years."Ambassadors resolved to reach a decision when they meet again Friday, and a three-month extension would likely put the U.K. on course for an early general election. Johnson hosted his arch-rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, for talks in Parliament on a new timetable for MPs to debate and scrutinize the Brexit deal, and Corbyn reiterated that Labour would back an election once the threat of a no-deal Brexit has been removed, according to an opposition spokesman. Johnson could make a new attempt to trigger an election as early as Thursday, the Times reported. Today's Must-ReadsWith Brexit remaining as elusive as ever, companies have little choice but to prepare for any outcome. We're tracking what firms have done, or are planning to do, to prepare. The U.K. needs some Brexit honesty and another referendum, according to the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.Members of Johnson's top team are at war with one another over whether to seek an election or continue pushing his deal through Parliament, according to BuzzFeed News.How are we doing? Time is running out to tell us what you think of the Brexit Bulletin. Please take a few minutes to fill in our survey.Brexit in BriefJohnson Cancels | Johnson pulled out of Thursday's scheduled appearance before a parliamentary scrutiny hearing at the eleventh hour yesterday, citing the need to focus on Brexit. The prime minister, who was due to give evidence to the Liaison Committee of senior MPs at 10 a.m., canceled the appointment via a handwritten note to its chair, who quickly vented her frustrations on Twitter. Javid Presses Ahead | One government appearance that will be going ahead amid the potential delay looks to be the budget, with Chancellor Sajid Javid confirming on ITV's Peston show last night it is on track for Nov. 6.Branson Defiant | Billionaire U.K. entrepreneur Richard Branson said opponents of Brexit should hold out for a second referendum and not be seduced into backing Johnson's revised deal. Concern about avoiding a no-deal split combined with a sense of fatigue surrounding the Brexit debate risks eroding political and public opposition to the schism, the Virgin Group founder said Wednesday in an interview.Services Concern | The value of U.K. services exports fell in the second quarter, driven by a decline in trade to the EU, official figures showed Wednesday. Overseas sales in the nation's dominant sector decreased to £72.2 billion ($93.3 billion) in the three months through June, with those to the EU dropping by £1.7 billion.On the Markets | Investor hopes for either clarity or closure on Brexit have lifted British stocks, credit and the pound in recent weeks. But with neither scenario materializing, a few nerves are starting to show, Bloomberg's Samuel Potter and Michael Msika report.Coining It | The prospect of another Brexit delay means a small batch of special 50p coins minted to commemorate the Oct. 31 exit day look set to be become collectors' items, according to the Telegraph. At least 1,000 of the coins bearing that date have already been created as part of a trial, and could quickly be highly sought after items if an extensions renders them incorrect.Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday. It's live at midday on Bloomberg Radio and is available as a podcast too.Share the Brexit Bulletin: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For full EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.To contact the author of this story: David Goodman in London at dgoodman28@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Adam Blenford at ablenford@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Vietnam artist known for land rights, death row work briefly detained Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:59 AM PDT  A Vietnamese artist who exhibited controversial works on land rights issues and death row inmates said he was briefly detained in the communist state intolerant of dissidence of any kind. Thinh Nguyen was picked up outside his Hanoi home by several men who were not in uniform, along with one uniformed officer, and was driven to back to his house, which doubles as his studio. "They asked many questions concerning my work," said Thinh, who has produced art and films about social issues in Vietnam.
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| UPDATE 2-U.S. Attorney General Barr's review of Russia probe faces backlash Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:08 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-U.S. Attorney General Barr's review of Russia probe faces backlash]( "UPDATE 2-U.S. Attorney General Barr's review of Russia probe faces backlash") U.S. Attorney General William Barr faced growing criticism from Democrats on Friday after the Justice Department said it had intensified its politically charged review of the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A person familiar with the matter late on Thursday confirmed that the inquiry had become a criminal investigation, a sign that the federal prosecutor leading the effort, John Durham, thinks laws may have been broken.
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| 12-year-old boy dies unexpectedly in Italy while on family cruise aboard the MSC Divina Posted: 24 Oct 2019 04:07 PM PDT  A 12-year-old boy from Germany died while on the MSC Divina late Monday night as the ship sailed between the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia.
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| A fire in California's Sonoma County has burned nearly 22,000 acres. To avoid further risk, PG&E might orchestrate the state's largest-ever blackout. Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:35 PM PDT  A wildfire ignited late Wednesday night in Sonoma County, California. The quick-moving blaze has spread across 21,900 acres, fueled by high winds.
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| Meghan McCain Goes Off on ‘Wannabe’ TV Star Matt Gaetz Posted: 24 Oct 2019 09:10 AM PDT  The View/ABCMeghan McCain was not impressed with the House Republicans' publicity gambit this week to disrupt Democrats' impeachment hearings led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).After Abby Huntsman mentioned that Gaetz is reportedly filming a documentary series for HBO called The Swamp—and allegedly broke House rules to get the crew members into the Capitol building—McCain went off."I hate political stunts across the board in general," McCain said. "I think we elect people in order to serve in Congress." Comparing what Republicans did this week to the Democratic sit-in for gun control in 2016, she said, "Democrats shouldn't be doing it, Republicans shouldn't be doing it." "We elect you to get your freaking job done one way or the other," McCain continued, "and when you are sitting on a sit-in for 26 hours or you're doing what Republicans did yesterday, it's the reason why Congress has a 13 percent approval rating." "By the way, Matt Gaetz, when did you become a TV star or wannabe a TV star?" she asked in disgust. "You want to do that? Get the hell out of Congress! Get a TV job! But you're probably not interesting enough to do it." "No one's going to hire him, he's boring," Joy Behar added. It was a relatively rare moment of agreement between McCain and Behar, who said earlier of Republicans, "I think they're scared because, you know, because Trump said that any never-Trumpers are considered 'scum.'" "So they don't want to be labeled as scum in his eyes and they're afraid of getting thrown out of their job," she added. "And it's just based on pure, you know, fear—just fear and cowardice in my opinion." Jimmy Kimmel Tears Apart Trump 'Ass-Kisser' Matt Gaetz for Threatening Michael CohenRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Philippine vice president says time for Duterte to halt failed drug war; 'It's not working' Posted: 24 Oct 2019 12:49 PM PDT  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte should allow the United Nations to investigate his war on drugs, and abandon a deadly campaign that has been failure and a dent on the country's international image, its vice president said on Wednesday.
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| China Wants To Control What The American People Think Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:09 PM PDT  Can they do that?
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| 16 sentenced to death for setting Bangladesh student on fire Posted: 24 Oct 2019 06:43 AM PDT  A court in eastern Bangladesh sentenced the principal of an Islamic school and 15 others to death on Thursday over the killing of an 18-year-old woman who was set on fire for refusing to drop sexual harassment charges against the principal. Judge Mamunur Rashid of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal found Principal Siraj Ud Doula and the others guilty of either killing the woman or ordering her death in April. Tens of thousands of people attended Nusrat Jahan Rafi's funeral prayers in her hometown, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged that her family would get quick justice.
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| Some Stories Never Die Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:18 PM PDT  This is an excerpt from episode 172 of The Editors podcast.Rich: Without further ado, let's get into the week's news. Jim Geraghty, the news that dominated this week was the testimony from acting Ukrainian ambassador William Taylor behind closed doors, although we've seen his 15-page opening statement, which, if you're into these sort of things, is gripping reading. Seems more detailed and credible than the opening statements of Kurt Volker and then Sondland, whose first name, I must confess, I don't know, the EU ambassador, both of whom were okay for Trump, and this was not. It strongly suggests that there was a quid pro quo, at least the intention of a quid pro quo, a lot of maneuvering around a quid pro quo, and an irregular Ukrainian policy channel that was running outside of the normal channels, where everyone thought pressuring the Ukrainians on these investigations was not a very good idea. What did you make of it?Jim: It was pretty darn bad, Rich, from the administration's perspective. Bill Taylor is clearly a guy who, the suspicion is, takes copious notes after every single conversation, who clearly was intent upon establishing a paper trail. He clearly had doubts when he stepped into the position. He had been a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine '06 to '09, so he knew the region, well-respected, knew what he was getting into, and had to be talked into taking the job by Mike Pompeo. Apparently, Mrs. Taylor thought this was a terrible idea. Life lesson, always listen to your wife.Because it sounds like once he got there, he found that there were two channels between the Ukrainian government and the U.S. government, one through the official channels and then this second one through Giuliani. Now, a lot of people were . . . There was a huge brouhaha over this around the middle of the week. I think what jumped out to me and just struck me as the most mind-boggling aspect, and one of the reasons . . . an aspect that should be fairly easy to either confirm or deny or conflict pretty easily.At one point, Taylor describes, and this is I guess technically secondhand, but that there was sufficient concern amongst Secretary of Defense Esper, Secretary of State Pompeo, CIA director Gina Haspel, and National Security Advisor John Bolton. All four of them felt that this was a serious problem about withholding aim to Ukraine, that they opposed it, they didn't understand the reasoning behind it, but that none of them could get a meeting with the president. If those four people can't get a meeting with the president . . . What is he, hiding? This is a matter . . .First of all, if you're president of the United States, and all four of those people think you're making a mistake, at minimum, you should listen to them. You should think about "Okay, these are all people I picked. These are all people I entrusted with these duties. All of them are telling me this is a terrible decision and I shouldn't do it." I think, at very least, you got to hear them out. If you really disagree with them, they either have the option of resigning or you can fire them, but you can't just totally ignore them, or apparently just be too busy to meet with these four positions. It's baffling. Also, we know from precedent things like Tenet used to go into the morning briefing with President George W. Bush all the time. You can't quite understand why these people would have such a hard time having a meeting with the president.If that doesn't check out, then Taylor has actually done the cause of impeachment some damage, and it means that his account of things is exaggerated or the worst possible spin is put on it and stuff like that. But if it checks out, you can't have a president who's hiding from four of his top advisors on national security and refuses to meet with them. That's just too dysfunctional to go forward, and you've got to end it. You can't deal with a president who simply won't meet when his top advisors say, "No, you're about to make a terrible mistake here, Mr. President."Rich: MBD, there's a direct contradiction here between Taylor and Sondland. I guess Sondland is trying to reposition what he said, but Sondland is like, "Oh, this is all above board. There was no quid pro quo. We're just pressuring them on corruption." Then you have Taylor basically saying, "No, Sondland was the guy, a major player who was doing it. I had these conversations with him. Sondland might say the president says there's not a quid pro quo, but they've got to do these things to get the money. There's not a quid pro quo, but the president is a businessman. He wants you to provide the deliverables before he signs the check." It seems to me before all is said and done on this impeachment process in the House, you've got to have these guys, Taylor and Sondland, at a witness table together hashing this out.Michael: Yeah. I found Taylor's testimony pretty compelling. I thought the really troubling thing was that . . . I always thought from the beginning that the nature of the conversation was quid pro quo, that this is just the nature of foreign relations when you are a patron state like the United States and you're dealing with a client state like Ukraine. When the patron starts asking for things and you are dependent on them, you have to think that the strings are going to be pulled if you don't deliver.What was troubling was Taylor was describing that, in a sense, the administration just wanted the announcement of investigations. They just wanted the PR rather than the reality. That really drains the case out of those who say, "Okay, maybe there was quid pro quo here, but the U.S. has a legitimate interest in the corruption," the Luke Thompson argument that I was open to.Rich: Hi, Luke.Michael: Taylor sort of pulls me . . . The testimony pulls me away from it because it looks like, if Taylor's testimony checks out, this is just what he wanted. He wanted the announcement. In effect, he wanted the political effect.Rich: Is that the case, or is it when a foreign government or a politician here in the United States has actually committed to something publicly, then they're more committed to it than if they're saying, "Yes, yes," in private?Michael: Of course, but it just . . . The policymaking hash that was laid out and described just did not seem inconsistent with any notion of statesmanship or even, really, political savvy. It was very blunt, very direct, very ham-handed. The fact that it also goes along with this weird . . . As you look deeper, I think a lot of people glossed over the CrowdStrike elements. I know that didn't feature as tightly in Taylor. But when you start scratching the surface of that, it's like this was a conspiracy theory that the president and Giuliani were chasing-Rich: It's bonkers.Michael: . . . themselves into a rabbit hole here. Yeah, I think Taylor's good reputation and the events he described, for me, the takeaway was I felt Democrats are now . . . Yuval Levin has written about this on our website, that once you get the process going towards impeachment inquiry, there's a momentum that gathers, and I saw a lot of momentum there. It will be very difficult, I think, for Democrats to put that out in public, a very easy story of abuse of power for personal political benefit, I think it's going to be very hard for them not to impeach him.Rich: Charlie Cooke?Charlie: Well, the question now is whether this is impeachable and not whether it happened. The question is not whether there was a quid pro quo. The question is not whether there was inappropriate behavior or wrongdoing. The question is whether the Congress wants to impeach the president, whether it's a good idea to do so as we enter an election year, whether the public thinks this is sufficiently serious to warrant removal, whether the Democrats can keep the momentum up, whether Republicans think that there's a double standard here, that we know of wrongdoing by other presidents that didn't lead to impeachment or to removal.I don't think there's an argument that nothing happened. Alan Dershowitz, this morning, argues that this is not an impeachable offense. Others have argued persuasively that it is. That question is, of course, an entirely political one, but the case that we are talking about a nothing or that this is a witch hunt or that this is peripheral, marginal, simply cannot be made now, in my view.We will watch as it plays out. We will watch as Republicans such as Matt Gaetz get more and more ridiculous in their antics. We will watch as the language that was deployed by Democrats in defense of Bill Clinton is picked up by Republicans. Whether there'll be an impeachment, I don't know. I suspect not. But there is certainly—Rich: You mean a removal?Charlie: No, I mean an impeachment.Rich: You don't think he'll get impeached by the House?Charlie: I think he probably will. I think there's a chance still that he won't. Depends how quickly they can do it. If they can move quickly, he will be. If it drags out for whatever reason — I can't imagine why it would — if it does, I think the chances of the House pursuing it long into an election year are less. But let's not pretend that we're not now talking about an actual scandal and an actual subject for impeachment.Michael: Hey, Charlie, President Zelensky is a consenting adult. I don't know what language will be used by Republicans picked up from the 1990s. I think the question you raise, though, is—Charlie: They used lynching, and we had this whole silly debate about this.Michael: That's true.Charlie: It turns out, of course, that that word was used over and over and over again in 1998, including by Joe Biden. That's how this goes. We live in a partisan nation. Congress is far more likely to vote along ideological or partisan lines than it is to protect its prerogatives, and so there is an interest for the party that shares the president's label to cast any attempts to investigate his behavior as the Salem witch trials. It's going to be funny watching Republicans adopt the same language Democrats did, and Democrats adopt the same language Republicans did, and Adam Schiff become Ken Starr.Michael: My question for you, though, is do you think that there's so much public fatigue with Democrats and the Russia collusion story and so on that, in a sense, the Democrats have already spent too much of their credibility to carry this off without damaging themselves?Charlie: I don't know. I would've thought that more likely before I saw the polling. The reality is this could go both ways, couldn't it? You could have the voters, after an initial spasm of excitement, saying, "I've been hearing about this from day one, from before Trump was even president. Enough. Let's have the election next year." Or the Russia scandal — or non-scandal as it turned out — could serve as a backdrop that makes it seem to those who don't pay close attention as if Trump has got worse and worse, has been embroiled in scandal since day one, and that it's about time there was an impeachment drive.I don't know which one is more likely. I do know that Democrats will have to move quickly if they're going to get this done, because I think the closer we get to Election Day, the less useful a process impeachment looks and the stronger the argument, whether it's made in good or bad faith, that they're trying to preempt a vote.Rich: Jim, I think sadly, from my point of view, it looks like Pelosi judged this whole thing very shrewdly, because for a couple years, or since the election at least, the midterms, she's like, "Nope, we're not doing it. Nope, that's not what this is about. No, we're not doing it." Then she sees the window opening here on Ukraine, says, "Yeah, actually, we are doing it."The polling so far has showed a window did open. It's not just Democrats who have swung in favor of impeachment, the ones that were still holdouts. You've seen the numbers swinging in some polls among independents a little bit, among Republicans in some polls as well. There's no downside that's evident at the moment. Maybe we'll see that down the road, but I've begun to think actually the equities have switched here.Trump, who's not being served well in this chapter of his presidency . . . The facts haven't gotten better the way they did in the Russia probe, even though the media was hysterical throughout the duration. They've gotten worse, probably will continue to get worse. And his reaction has been pretty terrible. The human scum thing was disgraceful. The only way he's going to turn the page on this is to get impeached and, almost certainly, acquitted by the Senate. When that happens, then, two weeks later, we'll be like, "Whoa, impeachment happened? Wow, I can't even remember that. Seems like it was a decade ago."Whereas for Democrats, there's no downside evident, again, at the moment. It's a plus 50 percent issue in some polls. It's more popular than probably some of the other things they would want to do, and they're getting this drip, drip of revelations that are helpful for them. I take Charlie's point. You don't want to push it into April 2020. But I don't see a major downside if it slides into the new year, which it looks, by the way, whatever they ideally want to do, it looks like it probably will.Jim: Yeah. I was going to say, in normal circumstances, if you were going to get impeached, nobody likes getting impeached, nobody wants . . . Trump, I guess, famously said, "You don't want that on your resume." You'd want it done as quickly as possible, get it into the rear-view mirror, and let it just become a chapter in the book of your presidency and not something . . . I actually think the longer this drags on, the better it is for Trump for the 2020 election.I think, also, probably the strongest argument Republicans have right now is: "We're so close to the 2020 general election. Why would you want to do this? Why would you want to take away . . . Why would you try to have a Senate decision on whether Trump should continue as president right before the American public gets to have its say on whether Trump should continue as president?" I can think of easily four or five Democratic senators who would be saying, "Yes, let's get this done as quickly as possible." Their names are Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and all these people who'd much rather spend January in Iowa and New Hampshire than stuck in Washington listening to hearings all day.In terms of the merits, it's very tough to say, A, this is no big deal, this is private matters, this is normal. None of this stuff is going to fly. I think you see it in the poll numbers.The other thing was that, from the very beginning of the Russia stuff, I've counted myself on the skeptical side of it because I just figured at some point you'd have to have either audio tape or written messages or emails, something indicating Trump and Putin cackling together. That would just be . . . The idea that the Russian government and FSB, the successor to the KGB, would manage to get their claws into an American presidential candidate and turn him into the Manchurian candidate, and that all of this would escape the attention of the NSA, all of this would escape the attention of the CIA, FBI, all of our vast intelligence-gathering apparatuses would completely miss all of this, just never passed the smell test. I'm pretty sure we have a lot of people who try to keep an eye on what Vladimir Putin is doing on a day-to-day basis.In this case, all the information is from the American side. We're getting some stuff from Ukraine, but the issue isn't really how Ukraine responded. In fact, Ukraine seems to have done something semi-honorable by saying, "Look, we want to play ball here, but we're not going to claim that somebody is under investigation when they're not. And we're not going to investigate someone if there isn't real evidence of a crime here." I wrote that long timeline saying Hunter Biden stinks to high heaven, and it's probably very unethical, at the very minimum, a giant, glaring appearance of conflict of interest, but there's no evidence a crime was committed either here in the United States or over in Ukraine. You don't get to say, "Hey, let's dig into this guy," just for the sake of placating the American president.It's pretty darn bad. I suppose the longer this drags on, eventually the exhaustion factor could start playing in the president's advantage.Rich: Well, Michael, I think the—Charlie: Even then, Jim—Rich: Go ahead, Charlie.Charlie: Even then, Republicans have a rhetorical problem because they'll have to make one of two arguments. The first is "We're too close to an election. Let's judge the president at the polls." The second is "This is bad, but it's not an impeachable offense. It's the sort of judgment call which the president should be held accountable for by voters." Then they'll have to stand next to him in their home state and say, "We need to reelect President Donald J. Trump."It's easy for Republicans to push this away by acknowledging there's something there and pointing at November of next year as the obvious end point . . . until they are asked to campaign for him, which they're going to have to do. There is a problem here for Republicans in the long run because there's no escaping it, unless they take the view "Look, the whole thing is a scam. The whole thing is made up," but that's now an untenable position.Jim: The only other thing I'd throw in there is that under a normal presidency, you could say, "You know what, let's do a resolution of censure. Let's all go on record expressing our disapproval. Bad, president, bad. Don't do that again," slap him on the wrist, and everybody moves on and there's no risk of his presidency coming to a premature end. Then when you get asked about it on the trail, "Look, I expressed my disapproval of the president. He shouldn't have done it, but now it's time to focus on the real issues," blah blah blah blah blah.But you can't do that with this president. Trump would then take the name of any Republican who voted on that resolution of censure and probably campaign for the Democrat against them. He doesn't take any of this stuff lying down, or relaxed or laid back about any of this. He really boxes them in. He gives them very limited options.Rich: Michael, one, on the question of whether he should be impeached and removed or whether this is a best matter to be adjudicated in an election, I think that's the strongest ground for the president and for Republicans to argue. There was a Marist poll the other day; I think it had support for the impeachment inquiry above 50. But far down in the questions they asked, they asked, "Do you want him to be impeached, or do you prefer that there be an election?" and like 57-38, people wanted the election. I think that's the strongest ground.To Jim's point, contrition is such a powerful force when properly mustered in our politics, and clearly the play here, and a lot of Trump people might say, "Oh, that's too conventional. He's never going to do it," certainly never going to do it is true, but I think the obvious play would've been to say, "Yeah, I see how this looks now. I shouldn't have done it. I really think Hunter Biden is corrupt. I let that take too much control over my actions, and I was pressuring them. I realize how it looks. I shouldn't have done it. And by the way, here are all the facts right here in one day," go to it, and you wouldn't have the drip, drip now. And you'd have, as Jim points out, Republicans be able to say, "Well, let's put it behind us. He said he's regretted it. We think it's wrong." Instead, they've been dragged into this position where everyone has to say the letter is perfect.As you were saying, the letter wasn't perfect. You were saying there was implicit quid pro quo there all along. But they've also made quid pro quo the trip wire, which wasn't necessary. It seems to me the best defense is not impeach and remove twelve months from an election, and ultimately release the money. This was a terrible process, shouldn't have happened, but end of the day, no harm, no foul.Michael: They could try it. I think there's probably growing resentment among elected Republicans that they laid out this "no quid pro quo" trip wire and then were immediately pushed backward over their heels over it.We have to remember the base of the Republican party was still with Nixon when elected Republicans abandoned Nixon. I'd be careful about . . . The elected officials, how they respond to this still matters if they really tire of him. It could matter to the president ahead of the time that we see a big collapse in support in his polling. I think there's a lot that's still uncertain here about how people will react, and also just how Trump is going to react if he feels cornered and politically abandoned.Rich: Just seems to me if Trump were removed by the Senate, it would split the party asunder. It would hand whoever the Democratic nominee is the election. I wrote this in a column today. Republicans haven't won the popular vote in a presidential election since 1988. How are they possibly going to win with any significant division? Trump obviously is not—Charlie: They won in 2004.Rich: What's that? Once, yeah.Charlie: They won the popular vote in 2004.Rich: Yeah, once since 1988.Michael: Did they win a majority?Rich: If I said never, I misspoke. Yeah, once since 1988. So how are they possibly going to win an election when they have any significant division? Anyway, we should move on.Rich: Exit question to you, Jim Geraghty. William Taylor's testimony will be remembered as an inflection point in the impeachment drama, yes or no?Jim: You mean the written testimony or if he does it before the cameras in some future hearing?Rich: I should say his opening statement that we've seen.Jim: Okay. I think the televised . . . When he does it on camera, it'll be a bigger deal.Rich: MBD? Inflection point, yes or no?Michael: No, I think this is still all downstream of the transcript release, the own goal.Rich: Charlie Cooke?Charlie: I think it's an inflection point, yes, because it represents the moment at which it became impossible to insist that nothing had happened here and that there was no grounds for an impeachment drive.Rich: I agree with Charlie. I think it's a minor inflection point. I take MBD and Jim's points there will be bigger things to come, just from Taylor alone, the rest of the deposition, and I think which has to be public testimony. I think Democrats would want that. He will likely be one of their star witnesses. But it is, at least, a minor inflection point in that it knocked the "no quid pro quo" argument back on its heels.
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| The argument Trump doesn't want his supporters to make Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:55 AM PDT ![The argument Trump doesn't want his supporters to make]( "The argument Trump doesn't want his supporters to make") One somehow doubts that President Trump is grateful to Matthew Whitaker, the former acting attorney general, for comments he made on television recently concerning the ongoing Ukraine scandal. With his usual heedless candor, Whitaker insisted to his Fox News host on Wednesday that "abuse of power" by a president is not illegal and thus not necessarily grounds for impeachment.This is totally true, albeit in the same sense in which "corruption" and "lying" and "being a totally obnoxious ass" are not crimes. None of these things has a statutory definition. Thank you, Mr. Whitaker, for being the real last honest man in the GOP.Because this is really the only argument that remains available to the president and his defenders, isn't it? Whether Trump wants to admit it or not, his political fortunes now depend not on questions of fact but on whether anyone cares that he used the authority of his office to attack a political rival. That he has done so is now more or less beyond doubt. Insisting that he was motivated by anything except a desire to affect the outcome of the next presidential election is as pollyannaish as, well, suggesting that Hunter Biden was on the payroll of a Ukrainian natural gas company because of his vast knowledge of that sector in post-Soviet Eurasian republics -- or that Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch had a polite chat on the tarmac one afternoon about a new deluxe edition of Rumors rather than the investigation of his wife's emails then being conducted by the Obama administration.This is why Republican members of the GOP in Congress are now making procedural arguments about the supposed unfairness -- with special emphasis on the alleged secrecy -- of the impeachment process. What began by casting doubts on the credibility of the so-called "whistleblower" and continued with a series of niggling hang-ups about details is now a nakedly formalist exercise in saying "No fair!" as loudly as possible. They will continue to embarrass themselves with stunts like Wednesday's attempted storming of the Secure Classified Information Facility because there is nothing else that they can say or do.Is the process actually unfair? This does not seem to me to enter into the equation. All that matters is whether Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff have enough votes to impeach the president in the House (my guess is yes, though barely) -- and whether Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republican senators will stand by the leader of their party (once again, I think the answer is yes). Impeachment is a nakedly political process. There are no clearly defined criteria for what constitutes an impeachable offense -- only the willingness or unwillingness of the House to pursue impeachment. The remedy is worthy of the illness.A more interesting question is why Trump and defenders are in fact shying away from Whitaker's argument. It is not clear to me that it is such a bad one. Anyone who believes that the office of the presidency operates in a sphere outside "politics," in the sense of the word that means partisan elections, is being naive. Of course presidents do things in the hope that they will help them to be re-elected. Ours is an exhausting news cycle full of distractions. How many of Trump's supporters from 2016 are likely to change their minds because the leaders of a more or less insignificant republic half a world away received money they were due anyway after hearing America's mayor rant at them about a man whose chances of winning the Democratic primary are not nearly as certain as they appeared to be several months ago?This no doubt sounds very cynical. It is cynical -- as cynical as promising that Mexico would pay for the wall or giving Michael Cohen money to shut up Stormy Daniels or giving corporations tax breaks before insisting that they scale back their operations in China and stop laying off hard-working Americans.This is what this presidency has been like from the very beginning. Why would the end -- whether it comes next year or in 2021 -- be any different?Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.
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| Top Mexican broadcasters feel the pinch from fewer government ads Posted: 24 Oct 2019 07:46 PM PDT  Revenue from government-sponsored publicity campaigns in Mexico has continued slide for the country's top two television broadcasters, part of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's austerity push. Government ad spending on the country's most-watched television channels has fallen for four consecutive quarters. Televisa, Mexico's largest broadcaster, reported on Thursday that advertising sales in the third quarter fell by more than 5% to total 4.8 billion pesos ($243 million), compared to the same period last year, and pointed to government spending cuts as the main culprit.
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| View Photos of Our Long-Term 2019 Honda Passport Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:30 AM PDT |
| UAW says it has ratified General Motors contract, ending strike Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:24 PM PDT  General Motors hourly workers ratified a new contract with the auto giant on Friday, ending the longest automotive strike in nearly 50 years. The package includes an $11,000 ratification bonus, wage increases and no increases in health care costs, said statements from GM and the United Auto Workers, touting the agreement as a compromise that worked for both sides after difficult negotiations. Nearly 50,000 hourly workers had been on strike since September 16, effectively shutting down GM's US manufacturing operation.
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| Guy Says He Can Enter Wormholes and Literally Make It Rain, Which, Hmm Posted: 24 Oct 2019 06:36 AM PDT  Lots to unpack here.
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| Reps. Schiff, Nadler criticize DOJ for elevating Russia probe to criminal investigation Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:54 PM PDT  Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., criticized the Justice Department late Thursday after the DOJ upgraded its inquiry into the origins of the Russia probe to a criminal investigation.
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| RIP, Iran: Could the Regime Fall? Posted: 24 Oct 2019 11:00 PM PDT  It looks unlikely, but Iran is in a tough spot.
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| SC sheriff guilty of misconduct, faces up to 1 year in jail Posted: 24 Oct 2019 08:43 PM PDT  A South Carolina sheriff faces up to a year in prison and will lose his job after a jury found him guilty Thursday of misconduct in office. A Greenville jury deliberated more than four hours before splitting its verdicts, finding suspended Greenville County Sheriff Will Lewis guilty of misconduct that involves corruption or fraud, but not guilty of misconduct that involves not doing a public job properly. Lewis is the ninth sheriff in South Carolina to be convicted of crimes while in office in the past decade.
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| Warren’s Socialism for the Upper-Middle Class Is Awful — and Conservatives Need a Better Alternative Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:13 PM PDT  The first thing that needs to be noted about Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax — and, unsurprisingly, is seldom mentioned in discussions of it — is that it would redistribute hundreds of millions of dollars from the rich to the nearly rich.Let's assume for argument's sake that the wealth tax passes as she now proposes it and raises $2.75 trillion, as she estimates it will. (These are big assumptions, but bear with me.) Her plan would dedicate $1.25 trillion of that sum to "higher education" — that is, mostly to 18-year-olds who are already in the top third of their peers, as academic achievement and economic status are so closely correlated. Just over half of that ($640 billion) is dedicated to debt relief for college students. She would cap the relief at $50,000 and aim it at those who are earning less than $100,000 a year.The caps and controls would exclude those doctors and lawyers who come out of school with a huge portion of the total student debt in America, but begin earning well into the six figures shortly after graduation. It's also true, though, that many student-debt holders who have a similar career trajectory can afford to earn less than $100,000 a year in order to win $50,000 in debt relief. Debt relief would rain down on graduates who are themselves privileged enough to take entry-level jobs in high-status fields for the promise of delayed rewards. Many of these debt-holders would still be on their high-earning parents' health-care plans.A great part of the Warren debt-relief plan is simply taxing the wealthiest 75,000 households, and redistributing the gains to the next-wealthiest 250,000 households. We need to call this what it is: The continuing transformation of the Democratic party into the party of upper-middle-class entitlements, an attempt to take from the "bad" rich — the asset holders — and give to the "good" nearly rich. That many of the latter will become or are children of the former is just a trifling detail.While it could hardly be called revolutionary, the plan is actually pretty smart politics for Warren and the Democrats. It will dedicate a new program to demographic groups that have been moving away from Republicans and consolidating behind Democrats in recent elections: college graduates, upwardly mobile suburbanites. It will also address the genuine scandal of ever-growing student debt, without addressing the problem of ever-growing tuition and the luxurification of the American college experience. That is, it will relieve the costs to students, without really hitting the bottom line for the professoriate and administrations of colleges — another constituency that punches above its weight in the Democratic coalition.All of this should invite Republicans and conservatives to think harder about what direction they want to go in the future. There has been a lot of lazy and unfocused rhetoric about social and cultural "elites" in our circles, but not much in the way of making a coherent political case about the corruption and unfairness that is creeping into our system of meritocracy. Elizabeth Warren gets credit for having a "plan for that." We may not like her plans. But until we figure out how to make the college experience a better value, more worthwhile and less costly to students and the rest of society, the question will gnaw: Do we have anything better?
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| DOJ inquiry into origins of Russia investigation has shifted to criminal probe Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:51 AM PDT  The move is likely to fuel suspicion among Democrats that the attorney general is providing political cover to President Trump.
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| 31 pages vanished from the maintenance log of the Lion Air Boeing 737 Max before it crashed, investigators said Posted: 25 Oct 2019 04:00 AM PDT  Investigators' final report pointed to Boeing's design of the plane as well as compounding errors from Lion Air and the crew on the fatal flight.
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| Solomons govt says China's island lease 'unlawful' Posted: 24 Oct 2019 05:07 PM PDT ![Solomons govt says China's island lease 'unlawful']( "Solomons govt says China's island lease 'unlawful'") The Solomon Islands government says a contract signed by one of its provinces to lease the entire island of Tulagi to a Chinese company is unlawful and should be terminated. Details of the controversial long-term lease between Solomons' Central Province and China Sam Enterprise Group were made public shortly after the Pacific nation switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing in September, which sparked a strong rebuke from the United States. Headquartered in Beijing, Sam Group is a technology, investment and energy conglomerate founded in 1985 as a state-owned enterprise.
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| Pakistan confirms arrest of activist following US criticism Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:46 PM PDT  Pakistan on Friday confirmed it detained the father of a prominent activist who has fled the country, in an incident that's fueled fears of a clampdown on dissent and sparked condemnation from the United States. "Prof. Mohammad Ismail has been detained by the law enforcement authorities in Peshawar in a case of cybercrime as per our laws," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal said on Twitter. "Being a citizen of Pakistan, Prof. Ismail is entitled to due process and right of defence provided in the Constitution".
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| Amnesty leaders condemn US's Remain in Mexico policy as 'disgrace' Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:13 PM PDT  Leaders from US, UK, Kenya, Mexico, Greece and Canada said immigration program manufactured a crisis at borderAsylum seekers play at a migrant shelter in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico, on 18 October. Photograph: Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty ImagesAmnesty International leaders from around the world on Friday decried the US policy of sending asylum-seekers back to dangerous Mexican border towns to wait for their immigration cases as an "international disgrace" that must be ended.During a visit to the US-Mexico border this week, Amnesty International leaders from the US, UK, Kenya, Mexico, Greece and Canada said the Remain in Mexico, or Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), program had manufactured a crisis at the border by sending more than 50,000 people to Mexico.The asylum seekers, mostly families from Central America, are waiting in some of the most dangerous cities in the world, where they must fend for themselves without healthcare, work opportunities or school for their children."The Remain in Mexico policy is nothing short of an international disgrace, rather than calling it a migration protection policy this is really a migrant rejection policy," said Irungu Houghton, the executive director of Amnesty International Kenya. "It is incompetent, it is inhumane, and it is a cruel way of dealing with people who are fleeing for their lives."Rather than funding programs that deal with the reasons why people are coming into the United States of America or even dealing with the consequences of dealing with these large numbers of people, precious resources are being spent militarizing borders and building walls," he added.Houghton noted that Kenya is currently hosting 468,000 refugees, while the US, a much bigger country, has drastically shrunk its refugee and asylum programs.Gabriel Sakellaridis, executive director of Amnesty International Greece, said he was shocked by the scenes at the border and the US had engineered a situation similar to Europe, which has been pushing asylum and refugee processing outside its borders."In both of these ways, we see the United States and Europe, who are two of the wealthiest and most prosperous areas in the world, trying to create a front yard in either Mexico, or in Turkey or in Libya, in order to avoid their obligations to international refugee law and human rights," Sakellaridis said.The Remain in Mexico policy started in Tijuana in January before being rolled out at other border cities. Trump administration officials have said it is effective at keeping people out of the US and is improving due process – the opposite of what advocates on the border have reported.This month, Human Rights First revealed at least 340 reports of rape, kidnapping, torture and other violent attacks against people returned to Mexico while they wait for their case to be heard in US immigration courtMargaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said people they visited in camps in Matamoros, where more than 2,000 people are staying in squalid conditions, expect to be kidnapped and many had been kidnapped more than once."This expectation is part of the daily life waiting for their asylum cases to be considered," Huang said. "It's something that they all know will happen and it adds incredible stress to the already existing trauma these people have experienced."Kate Allen, executive director of Amnesty International UK, said "people's lives are absolutely being ruined" by the Remain in Mexico policy."This chaos of 50,000 people is completely self-inflected and unnecessary," Allen said.Like the other leaders, she commended the work of shelter operators in Mexico, legal aid providers, teachers and other volunteers trying to help refugees at the border. Allen said: "In all this what is quite wonderful is to see the way that civil society on both sides of the border is doing absolutely everything it can do, so ordinary people, who are taking action."
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| America Should Open the Door for Hong Kong Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:52 AM PDT  America can give pro-democratic Hong Kongers a shot at freedom here in the States.
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| Report: Philadelphia inspector facing sex assault charges Posted: 24 Oct 2019 03:25 PM PDT  A Philadelphia police inspector is facing charges he sexually assaulted three female officers, the latest development in a department plagued by sexual misconduct allegations that fueled the police commissioner's recent resignation. A grand jury probe determined that Inspector Carl Holmes, 54, abused his power after mentoring female officers at the police academy and in other roles, District Attorney Larry Krasner's office announced. The charges come two years after the city settled a female detective's sexual harassment lawsuit involving Holmes for $1.25 million.
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| A group of women who call themselves the ‘fantastic grandmothers’ discovered a group of rare, venomous snakes while snorkeling together Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:10 AM PDT  The seven women helped discover the snakes while working with scientists from the University of New Caledonia and Macquarie University in Australia.
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| The Problem with President Pence Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Republican senators will soon be receiving an invitation to tear apart the GOP ahead of the 2020 elections, and they are going to decline to accept it.It's a trope of pro-impeachment commentary that it should be simple for Republican senators to swap out President Donald Trump, who puts them in awkward positions every day, for Vice President Mike Pence, an upstanding Reagan conservative who could start with a fresh slate in the runup to the 2020 election.The only flaw in this scenario is that it is entirely removed from reality.If Senate Republicans vote to remove Trump on anything like the current facts, even the worst interpretation of them, it would leave the GOP a smoldering ruin. It wouldn't matter who the Democrats nominated for 2020. They could run Bernie Sanders on a ticket with Elizabeth Warren and promise to make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secretary of the treasury and Ilhan Omar secretary of defense, and they'd still win.A significant portion of the Republican party would consider a Senate conviction of Trump a dastardly betrayal. Perhaps most would get over it, as partisan feelings kicked in around a national election, but not all. And so a party that has won the popular vote in a presidential election only once since 1988 would hurtle toward November 2020 divided.How does anyone think that would turn out?A lot of Trump supporters are going to want to blame the Republican establishment even if Trump loses in 2020 with the backing of the united party apparatus. Imagine what they will think if a couple of dozen Republican senators decide to deny him the opportunity to run for reelection, without a single voter having a say on his ultimate fate. It's hard to come up with any scenario better designed to stoke the populist furies of Trump's most devoted voters.Trump himself isn't going to get convicted by the Senate and say: "Well, I'm a little disappointed, to be honest. But it was a close call, and Mike Pence is a great guy, and I'm just grateful I had the opportunity to serve in the White House for more than three years."He won't go away quietly to lick his wounds. He won't delete his Twitter account. He won't make it easy on anyone. He will vent his anger and resentment at every opportunity. It will be "human scum" every single day.And it's not as though the media are going to lose their interest in the most luridly telegenic politician that we've ever seen. The mainstream press would be delighted to see Trump destroyed, yet sad to bid him farewell. The obvious way to square the circle would be to continue to give Trump lavish coverage in his post-presidency. He'd be out of the White House but still driving screaming CNN chyrons every other hour.In other words, Trump's removal wouldn't be a fresh start for Pence and the GOP; it would be more like getting stuck in the poisonous epilogue of the Trump era, awaiting the inevitable advent of the Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, or Pete Buttigieg era.All of this is why the "cracks in the Republican Senate" coverage is so ridiculous and overwrought. It depends on the idea that GOP senators — who, it is true, are continually frustrated by Trump's controversies — are on the verge of engineering their party's own destruction.It's possible to come up with a scenario in which Ukraine developments are much worse than imaginable right now, and Trump's support craters, even among Republicans. Then, you might have GOP senators voting to convict. This is just another path to the immolation of the party in 2020, though; there's no way it would snap back from a Nixonian meltdown at the top in less than a year.In short, Mike Pence might be elected president one day, but it's not going to be while presiding over a party that has just jettisoned Donald Trump.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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| Another death at Penn State: Chi Phi fraternity suspended after teen dies off campus Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:15 PM PDT  For the second time in two years, a young man has died at Penn State at a house with frat members. PSU and Chi Phi have distanced themselves from it.
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| Puerto Rico unveils $20 billion plan to revamp island's power grid Posted: 24 Oct 2019 03:25 PM PDT  The so-called GridMod plan, developed with federal, local and private sector input, targets repair and reconstruction measures designed to strengthen the network and ensure its resilience against natural disasters like the devastating hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico in 2017, according to a statement from Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced's office. "The GridMod Plan will provide the safe, modern and resilient electricity network that our communities need and deserve," the governor said, adding that an improved power network will help boost the island's economy. Puerto Rico and its electric power authority known as PREPA filed for bankruptcy in 2017 just months before hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the power grid.
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| Here's How Much the Priciest Toll Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels Cost in the United States Posted: 24 Oct 2019 02:57 PM PDT |
| Maserati ditches Taiwan film awards after China boycott Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:18 AM PDT  Luxury Italian sports-car brand Maserati has cut sponsorship ties with Taiwan's top film awards, the latest international brand to bow to pressure from China on political issues. Maserati said on its official account on Weibo, China's Twitter-like online platform, that it had pulled out of sponsoring the upcoming Golden Horse Awards, often dubbed the "Chinese Oscars". The car company directly linked its decision to Beijing's stance on Taiwan, a self-ruled de facto independent nation for the last seven decades that China views as its own territory that must one day be seized, by force if necessary.
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| Japan’s Abe Replaces Economy Minister After Funeral Gift Scandal Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:52 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe named a new economy minister after the man he appointed a little more than a month ago stepped down over allegations that one of his aides made an illegal funeral donation.Isshu Sugawara, 57, told reporters Friday that he had resigned, becoming the first member of Abe's cabinet to leave after being appointed in September to the post responsible for the economy, trade and industry. Abe said he would install Hiroshi Kajiyama -- a veteran in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a former minister for regional economic revitalization -- in Sugawara's place.While the resignation is an embarrassment for Abe, who's on track to become Japan's longest-serving prime minister next month, he has weathered far worse storms before. The replacement isn't likely to dent support for his rule over the world's third-largest economy."I am responsible for the appointment and I deeply apologize for it," Abe told reporters, adding he wanted no pause in his plans to keep the economy moving. The swap won't affect Japanese trade relations with the U.S., which are being managed by Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.Pressure mounted on Sugawara this week when the Shukan Bunshun magazine published an article alleging that Sugawara's secretary gave 20,000 yen ($185) in condolence money to a supporter's family and made other inappropriate offerings to followers. Japanese law prohibits these types of donations, which can be seen as a form of vote buying and influence peddling.It was a repeat scandal for Sugawara, who previously faced similar allegations of making illegal donations to constituents more than a decade ago in the form of pricey melons and crabs, the magazine report said. But the statute of limitations had expired before any action was taken.Sugawara's replacement, Kajiyama, 64, is the son of an LDP stalwart. He worked at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency before joining his father in politics. Abe first appointed him to the cabinet in 2017.The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been at the forefront of export restrictions placed on items sent to South Korea as a part of an escalating feud between the neighbors. The ministry is also playing a role in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade deal among Southeast Asian nations and other Asian partners.Japan and others are pushing for a final deal by the end of the year, with the RCEP pact getting a fresh push at the meeting of ASEAN leaders that starts next week.Hidden Gold, 'Murky' Payoffs Threaten Japan Nuclear RevivalThe ministry is also responsible for oversight of the nuclear power industry, which is facing one of its worsts crises since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A payoff scandal rocking the industry, which emerged at the end of last month, centers around how an influential municipal official in a town that hosts a nuclear plant spent years doling out large gifts to executives of its operator, Kansai Electric Power Co.In his first news conference in the new post, Kajiyama said he wants to strictly address the problems at Kansai Electric and will do all he can to help the RCEP deal reach a conclusion by the end of the year.(Adds news conference from minister in final paragraph.)\--With assistance from Gareth Allan and Yoshiaki Nohara.To contact the reporters on this story: Jon Herskovitz in Tokyo at jherskovitz@bloomberg.net;Emi Nobuhiro in Tokyo at enobuhiro@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Muneeza NaqviFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The New Realignment Between Russia and the Philippines Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:50 AM PDT  For the first time in its history, Manila is seeking Russian assistance to upgrade its defensive capabilities and, potentially, even develop its energy resources in the South China Sea.
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| Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom signs #MeToo bill preventing 'no-rehire' clauses into law Posted: 24 Oct 2019 03:33 PM PDT  California Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month signed into law an anti-sexual harassment bill that prevents employers from implementing "no-rehire" clauses in settlements for sexual harassment victims.
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| Pair charged with capital murder in 3-year-old's death Posted: 24 Oct 2019 03:23 PM PDT  Prosecutors on Thursday charged two people with capital murder for the death of a 3-year-old Alabama girl whose body was found in a dumpster after she disappeared from a birthday party. Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr announced in a press conference that 39-year-old Patrick Devone Stallworth and 29-year-old Derick Irisha Brown, are charged with capital murder of a child under age 14. Capital murder carries a possible death penalty.
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| US plans to send tanks to Syria oil fields, reversing Trump troop withdrawal – reports Posted: 24 Oct 2019 06:56 PM PDT  * Tanks to come from units already in Middle East, report says * Trump has said US 'secured oil' despite withdrawalTurkey-backed Syrian fighters take over areas on the road between Tal Abyad and Kobane on Thursday, as Kurdish forces in north-eastern Syria left several positions along the long border with Turkey. Photograph: AFP ContributorAFP/AFP via Getty ImagesThe US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump's earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country.The most likely destination for US armoured units is a Conoco gas plant near the city of Deir Ezzor, the site of a February 2018 clash between US special forces and Syrian regime-backed militias fighting with Russian mercenaries.Fox News reported such a deployment was "likely" and that the tanks would come from units already in the Middle East. CNN said it would happen relatively soon.Trump has justified his decision to stand US troops down to allow a Turkish offensive in north-eastern Syria at the cost of abandoning Kurdish partners, by saying he was "bringing the troops home".However, it is quite likely it would take more troops to deploy, maintain, supply and protect armoured units in the middle of the eastern Syrian desert than the roughly 1,000 that were in the country before the Turkish invasion.The contradiction has been apparent in Trump's remarks in recent days, in which he claimed the US had "secured the oil" even while withdrawing its forces."It would mean walling off eastern Syria as a US zone," Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East programme at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington, said of the plan to put tanks around the Conoco plant. "You would have to protect it from the air. You have to supply it and then you have got to protect the road, presumably from Iraq. You can easily see a scenario where we end up with more troops in Syria than we started off with."On Thursday, Trump added to the confusion on Thursday by tweeting: "Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the oil region!"The remark seemed to endorse a population transfer from the Kurdish areas along the border with Turkey southwards to the almost entirely Sunni Arab area of Deir Ezzor. Such a mass displacement of Kurds from their homes would fit with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plans to resettle north-eastern Syria with Syrian Arab refugees to create a buffer zone against Kurdish insurgents. Kurdish refugees in Turkey are already reported to be subject to forcible deportation."The president of the United States is now helping Turkey achieve ethnic cleansing by telling the Kurds to flee their homes," former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said in a comment on Twitter.On Tuesday, Erdoğan struck a deal with Vladimir Putin on a 30km-deep "safe zone" in which Russian military police and Syrian border guards would oversee the withdrawal of armed Kurdish units from the area.Such mass demographic changes – carried out at the barrel of a gun – risk prolonging Syria's multiple-front conflict indefinitely, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and the UN's former humanitarian chief."This was an area of relative stability, before all of these deals," said Egeland, who was also the UN's special adviser on Syria. "We need to remind all of these people with the power and the guns that this is no chessboard. It is a place where people live. There are two to three million civilians in this area. I cannot see how this can be a safe zone for long with so many different armed parties."Egeland said about 180,000 people, half of them children, had been displaced as a consequence of the Turkish incursion. He added that Kurds arriving at overcrowded camps in Iraq said that many more would join the exodus from the north-east but could not afford to pay people-smugglers who charge hundreds of dollars per person.Egeland said the mass displacement of populations was being brought about as a consequence of "explosive, improvised deals"."For many, the move will not be voluntary and they will displacing the original population there. No problems will be solved and new problems will be created," he said.The US special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, admitted on Wednesday that "a bit more than 100 Isis detainees have escaped" from captivity as a result of the chaos triggered by the Turkish incursion. Trump claimed on the same day that the escaped Isis fighters had been "largely recaptured". Jeffrey told Congress: "We do not know where they are."There was also considerable uncertainty on Thursday of the fate of nearly 70,000 people, almost all women and children in the al-Hawl camp in north-eastern Syria. Some of them are families of Isis fighters, but many are civilians swept up in formerly Isis-run areas.The UN's assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Ursula Mueller, said the situation in the camp was "desperate". In a warning directed largely to western nations, Mueller said: "Member states have the primary responsibility for their own nationals, and policies and actions that lead to statelessness should be avoided."
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| Texas gun laws: What happens when ‘good guys’ have guns? Posted: 24 Oct 2019 05:17 PM PDT  The "good guy with a gun" stopping a mass shooter is ingrained in many gun enthusiasts' minds. Here's what law enforcement says about what can happen.
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| Exclusive: Son of producer who worked with Ukraine's president gets senior government job Posted: 24 Oct 2019 12:04 PM PDT  The son of a film producer who helped President Volodymyr Zelenskiy become a household name as an actor has been appointed the Ukrainian government's chief economic adviser, a senior government official said on Thursday. A former comedian and actor, Zelenskiy swept to power casting himself as a political outsider who would clean up Ukrainian politics and bring in new faces, but he has faced scrutiny over his appointments since taking office in May. Alexander Rodnyansky, an economist at Britain's Cambridge University, had already been part of a team of advisers and worked on Zelenskiy's economic program after he was elected this year.
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